


"I think it might just turn out okay."

by Lulannie



Series: Ribs [2]
Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, F/F, Multi, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, kara is stupidly optimistic all the time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-08
Updated: 2018-05-08
Packaged: 2019-05-04 03:15:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14583744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lulannie/pseuds/Lulannie
Summary: In which the soulmate she's never met is all that keeps Kara going.The less moody companion piece to "Cashier number six, please!"





	"I think it might just turn out okay."

**Author's Note:**

> It's advisable to first read the better, moodier ["Cashier number six, please!"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14562732) before this.

"I think it might just turn out okay."

Kara loves the words written high on her ribs. They're hopeful and kind and everything she could ever want in a person. Her mother quotes them to her when she's at her worst; when she comes out of playgroup in tears, when she's called to the principal's office for fighting, when she gets her first period. She sings her words in the shower, doodles them in notebooks.

She clings to them after The Accident, cradled to her cousin's chest as her family home burns to the ground.

Kara thinks they might be the only reason she's able to go on.

They're the reason she manages to open up to her new sister, one summer's night in Midvale. Kara's body convulses and sweats under her heavy duvet, trapped in a burning building as the _And you must be Alura!_ on her mother's outstretched palm disintegrates into hurt and soot. She's woken to the covers being flung from her kicking legs, her head sheltered in the crook of Alex's neck. Her sister bends at an awkward angle to keep the comforting arms in a protective hold around Kara's middle.

Once Kara stops heaving, Alex loosens her embrace - just slightly - to let them both sit comfortably on the bed. The collar of her nightdress is skewed, and Kara's reddened, glassy eyes are drawn to the _Pretty_ sat just below her collarbones. She lifts a tentative hand, sniffles a little, and draws a line under the lone word.

With great effort, she raises a heavy head to look into Alex's eyes.

"They're right, you know."

Alex goes pink and looks pointedly away, "And what has yours got to say?"

Kara smiles at that, never unhappy to be given the chance to show off her soulmate. She lifts the bottom of her tank top.

Alex's eyes soften, sad and understanding, meeting her sister's once again.

"I think yours is right, too."

-

Kara survives adolescence, quite the feat in itself, and is accepted into Stanhope College. She takes temp work to help fund university life alongside Eliza and Jeremiah's generous contributions, and in her third and final year she works for three months at the local town library.

The first week the library is open after Christmas, she has An Encounter.

She's reviewing missing stock when the bell above the entrance jingles, a tall man striding in and knocking the snow from his feet onto the welcome mat. He's young, but his eyes are haggard with overwork, and hair that might have recently been neat is overgrown and falls boyishly into his face. Long legs walk with purpose over to where Kara stands.

"I'm looking for translations - old languages, obscure cultures - do you have anything?"

He's blunt, but his charming face throws Kara for a moment.

"They're- yeah, they should be-" she starts, before laughing and shaking her head, "I'll just show you."

She leads him to a part of the HISTORICAL section, and goes to collect some other relevant books from LANGUAGES and RELIGION. She watches him scrutinise them, one by one.

Eventually, her curiosity gets the better of her.

"Could I ask, what is this for?"

She shifts awkwardly as he finishes reading a passage before responding. He fishes a notebook from his (very expensive looking) coat pocket, flicking through page after page of symbols. Symbols Kara can _read_.

"That's Kryptonian!"

He stares at her, eyes wide but revealing nothing, and urges her to continue.

She explains quickly, messily, out of order and in one single run-on sentence. She explains that her father was a cryptographer, working primarily for the government, but occasionally working with people looking to decipher their soulmate's seemingly nonsensical words. She rattles on about the secret language he helped her create, which she shared with her cousin - who is more like a sibling than anything. Her cousin (clearly in a state of writer's block) opted to call their language Cryptonian, and she agreed so long as it could be spelt with a "K for Kara". She doesn't tell the handsome stranger that alongside the words on her skin, this last link to her father kept her strong after The Accident.

The man seems to grow quietly agitated as she talks on, and once she's finished she stares at him curiously. He looks torn, picking at the spine of his notebook and itching his shin with the opposite foot in a subconscious compulsion.

"Only you and your cousin speak this language?"

"Yep, as far as I know - and even I'm a little rusty."

The man blanches, looking like he might be sick, and flees from the library into the white flurry outside.

Kara blinks. She resumes her work on autopilot, re-shelving the displaced books. She thinks of the strange man, of her cousin, and of the _I’m sorry_ printed on Clark's lower leg.

-

The Attack happens the next year. Alex accompanies her to Metropolis General hospital, and Kara sobs over Clark's fractured body. He grimaces a smile, cracking the clotted blood on his cheek and causing more thin red to run down his face.

Alex holds a comforting hand over Kara's ribs.

-

Clark eventually recovers, and for a while, everything actually is okay.

Kara moves out of Midvale to live with Alex in National City, and half by accident, half by miracle of nature, lands a job as secondary assistant to media mogul Cat Grant. And there begins Adulthood.

She meets James, who's already met his soulmate, with whom he bickers incessantly. Then there's Winn, who shows her the _Is that a fusion reactor?_ written on the nape of his neck on her first day, and the tiny fusion reactor replica he carries around at all times to "improve his chances". Finally, there's Ms Grant herself; wonderfully, unapologetically uninterested in anything that might be printed on her skin. Three marriages in, Ms Grant carries herself with a kind of otherworldly transcendence that has Kara completely enamoured.

In other words, she feels that everyone is dealing with their destiny a little better than she is. Kara takes some cues from Winn, and starts to open all new conversations with leading questions such as "The weather's not great, huh?" or "How do you think President Marsdin's inauguration will go?", which she hates herself for doing - it's both awkward and disheartening.

For some time she has the comfort of Alex's parallel romantic barrenness, until her sister comes home from work one day in a whirlwind of heart-eyes and uncharacteristic giggles. Apparently she's been stationed in Accident and Emergency, when a delirious, concussed motorcyclist (with potentially broken ribs) is admitted. Alex gushes to Kara about how pretty the woman's sternum was, especially with _I’m sorry, miss Sawyer, I’m going to have to remove your shirt_ printed delicately onto the skin.

Kara is, of course, delighted, but can't help the twinge of jealousy she feels when Alex comes home from yet another perfect date.

-

Later, Everything Starts Being Not Okay Until It Very Much Is.

Kara is very publicly fired from her job as a CatCo Junior Reporter for reporting the truth. Snapper launches the cardboard box in her direction and orders her to throw her meagre desk possessions into it and leave his goddamn floor. She's back in her apartment 40 minutes after leaving it, down one job and most of her dignity. After pulling herself out of a rut of tears and grief-baking, she spends three weeks being rejected from every remotely journalistic job she applies for, and it becomes evident that Snapper has her blackballed all over National City.

Suddenly incapable of affording her rent, she moves in with Alex and her fiancée. All in a moment she is the "unemployed friend" who squats on her sister's couch and watches too much daytime TV. After two months of self pity and Celebrity Mastermind, she admits defeat and accepts a job at the nearby supermarket.

Kara's days are now enriched with 8 hours of catapulting Jammie Dodgers at a shelf, trying to properly scan the bar-codes on vacuum-packed salmon and listening to the calls of "Cashier number six, please."

One evening, she's so busy trying to make conversation with a (very attractive, very intense-looking) customer while withholding a comment about how damn expensive this wine is, that she almost misses it.

"I think it might just turn out okay."

She drops the bottle, smashing the glass bottom of the counter scanner. 

Neither of them take much notice.   
  
She properly takes in pale, diamond-cut cheeks, dark lashes and full, bow-shaped lips. She melts into green eyes so pale that she can almost see past them, into a beautiful mind full of memories she wants to share. Only the burning of her rib takes her a little out of her reverie.

Kara feels the beginnings of a laugh bubble up in her chest, and she has to make sure.

"Do you- you wouldn't happen to have..." she chokes out, gesturing to where that lifelong mystery is hidden beneath her uniform, which seems to grow unbearably hot.

The amazing woman's whole face breaks into a smile.


End file.
